We received our good news affirming our building’s re-accreditation last month. It is now “certified” that Yellow Springs High School -- having met the requirements established by the AdvancED® Accreditation Commission and Board of Trustees -- is hereby accredited by the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement. This accreditation is valid through June 30, 2018.

As a reminder, this multi-step process began in the fall of 2012 with teacher subcommittees, a final application committee, a multi-day site visit of five educators (2 classroom teachers, 1 administrator, 1 AdvancED consultant, & 1 higher ed rep), and report-out. This accreditation process can now serve as a legitimate benchmark developed through input from all school stakeholders (including student and parent committees).

Because this process also involved assessing evidence -- that is benchmarked against other schools’ efforts throughout Ohio and the Midwest -- we get a stronger corroboration of our current school status. This permits a better sense of consensus about our current level of operation, achievement, and path for maintaining our excellence...while also pursuing the vision of our 2020 Plan (which, incidentally, the accreditation team thought was a terrific vision).

While approximately half of all schools in Ohio have dropped their accreditation efforts over the years, our pursuit of this re-accreditation effort should give us the intellectual freedom (and encouragement) to “break ranks” from an outdated 20th Century model of education and pursue the challenging and uncommon goals of the district’s 2020 Plan. While we will certainly take risks along the way in this path of continuous and original improvement, the rewards are incredible too.